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Dessert

Sweet Paste for Timbales

A sweet pastry paste made from flour, powdered sugar, eggs, yolks, and butter, used to line timbale molds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Sweet Paste for Timbales

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the paste

  1. Mix the flour, powdered sugar, whole eggs, egg yolks, and butter until a smooth paste forms.

  2. Butter the outside of a shell shape or croquante mold.

  3. Roll out the paste and lay it over the mold, trimming off any excess.

  4. Brush the paste with egg and prick it all over with a fork.

Bake the shell

  1. Place the mold on a baking sheet with a little burning charcoal underneath.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until light in color.

  3. Bake some of the same paste in a tart pan to match the mold.

Fill and serve

  1. Once the bottom paste is baked and removed from the tin, fill it with prepared fruit and place the shell shape on top.

  2. This paste can also be used to cut out edible ornaments.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the structure of the paste so it holds its shape when baked.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the paste brown lightly while baking.
Whole eggs
Bind the paste and add structure as the proteins set in the oven.
Egg yolks
Add richness and fat, giving the paste a tender texture and golden color.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor in the paste.

The step that matters

Bake until light in color. Underbaking leaves the paste soft and unable to hold the mold's shape, while overbaking makes it dry and brittle. Baking in a moderate oven sets the structure gradually and browns the surface evenly.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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